From the looks of things, the Galaxy S III might not be the world’s most durable smartphone. SquareTrade dropped the phone from ear level, had a kid chuck one in the air, and also let one slide off the back of the car. The screen cracked in two out of three tests. Then again, the iPhone 4S suffered its share of damage as well in side-by-side testing, so it’s possible there aren’t many glass-screened phones that would have made it though this brutal gauntlet unscathed. [SquareTrade]

Think I may has been the first person in Australia to break one.... picked it up Friday afternoon. Sunday night it was lying facedown on the floor of a camping ground after my mother had located the table. Fortunately my insurance covers the phone breakage with a new replacement unit in the first month.

ICS-AU ROM did wonders for that, though of course it still doesn't have anywhere near as much memory as newer phones.

My Desire went flying one day - was in my top pocket, and when I went to stop a tree branch whacking me in the face, I caught it with my hand and sent it flying up out of my pocket, then it tumbled down the flight of concrete stairs I was standing on.
It put a scrape on the corner of the case I have it in, but that's it. Nearly two years later, it's still going strong.

Bingo!
When you're talking about toughened glass, the level of stress applied in an impact is critical - if it's below a threshold value, no damage, but above that, ka-bang!
The stress level achieved depends on exactly how the phone lands, on what surface. Hitting the metal / plastic casing on the side = no damage. Hitting the corner of the glass on a pointy pebble = new screen.
You'd need to drop a *lot* of phones a lot of times to get any meaningful result. And you'd save a lot of time (and money) by just looking up the strength ratings of the glass used. If they're both the same level of Gorilla Glass, then it really comes down to chance as to which gets damaged and which survives (although the iPhone 4 exposes the edge of the glass much more, which would tend to lead to higher chance of damage, IMHO)

I am officially the first person in Australia to break a Galaxy S3! Well, as an Optus customer anyway.
Was camping on the weekend when my mother moved a table, watched my phone slide off it and land face-down on the ground. Cracked glass front, display itself still fine. Had the phone for all of 48 hours. $50 fee for insurance excess. Gorilla glass my ass! It fell 3ft onto a dirt surface. However, still the best phone I've owned in a LONG time.

dosen't it depend on where it lands....i dropped my iphone off a 30cm high coffee table and the whole front glass cracked, dropped my galaxy s2 from the balcony it landed on its back but the screen wasn't even scratched, but the the bump on the back of the galaxy s2 was dinted.